The Muzzle of a Gun: The Hawkeye 12
by EveryEye
Summary: Another take on the 12 illustrious Hawkeye themes. Some royai. Cameos by Havoc, Hughes, and Scar. Spoilers for episode 25 and chapters 43 & 44 of the manga. Enjoy!


Author's Note: Many awesome writers have done these themes before me, and I've enjoyed reading them all. Please enjoy mine as well, and if you do(n't), please shoot me a review.

Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, but I'm making no profit, either. Somehow, I feel that balances out.

**The Muzzle of a Gun: The Hawkeye 12**

**Earrings:**

He had a voice like a hammer hitting an anvil, her father. Rough and gravelly, coarsened by years of working in coalmines and smoking on the back porch. So, when she asked him if she could pierce her ears, it was no surprise that she couldn't muster a rebuttal to his firm, emphasized, "No."

Having long since learned the art of patience, she waited until her next birthday and asked him once more. Once more, she was refused.

Year after year she would ask, never complaining about his decision, but never giving up either. Finally, on her 14th birthday, he looked at her with hard, steel grey eyes and said only, "You had better not cry."

And as her mother pushed the hot needle through both her earlobes, she kept her eyes triumphantly open and dry.

He had given her the same look when she said she was going to join the military. Half way through her 17th year, she strode up to the kitchen table and did not _ask_, but _announced_ her intentions. She was an _adult_ now, and it was her decision to make.

Her mouth was crammed with two dozen justifications for her reasoning and scores of counter arguments to the refusal that would surely come, all waiting to spill forth as soon as he opened his mouth. To her surprise, after a brief pause her father said only, _"_Fine."

_But_, Riza remembered, _that was not what his eyes said_.

She was taking shelter in the remnants of a building, trying desperately to avoid the sandstorm that was doing its best to ruin the day's operation, and remembering how his eyes had looked at her. Challenging her.

But the challenge wasn't fair. Even if she could manage not to cry in this hot, dusty hell, where women and children lie mangled on the road side _(our own hands did this, my own gun_), even if she could manage not to cry in the face of the angry young man choking on his last breath (_he did this because he saw me kill his father)_, even if she could turn her heart into a solid block of ice in her chest (_so cold already)_, she still had the stinging desert sand in her eyes to contend with.

**Returning the Smile:**

His step was lighter that afternoon, and he hummed to himself as he signed the papers she piled in front of him. He was going through the stack more quickly than normal. He checked the clock for the fifth time that hour. There was no mistaking his distraction. He had a date.

Havoc had been in a particularly foul mood, so the Colonel's date had to be with the third floor phone receptionist that the 2nd Lieutenant had been trying to coax into going out with him for the better part of the week.

The clock struck five, and he rose from his desk where he had just finished signing his last document. Hawkeye had no more papers to put in front of him. If she did, she could make him tarry. Keep him there. Make him miss his date with the cute, brainless receptionist that Hawkeye was sure had no idea just how important a man Colonel Mustang truly was. But she had run out of papers and excuses.

He was bragging about where he would be taking her to Farman, in between giving her orders for closing up the office. She carefully tried to ignore everything but the essentials. Everything but her duties. "Hawkeye, make sure that file gets back to the IA department. _Yes boys, she's sure got… _Be sure to lock the top drawer of the grey filing cabinet. _…but I am a gentleman, after all. _ Don't forget to leave the new budget on my desk for tomorrow. …_that she'll never forget. _Please hand me my coat."

He was whistling, and handing some documents to Fury. After giving the office a general farewell, he turned and strode out the door, his coat tails snapping behind him. She watched this performance, this display, with empty eyes.

_No fraternization among officers and their subordinates will be permitted._ Says Section 5, Article 9 of the Military Conduct code. _Such behavior is too easily given to abuse of power and authority. _ Hawkeye has read the code. She understands its necessity. But staring at the solid oak door he had just closed on his way out, she couldn't help but dwell on the irony of just how abused she felt at the moment.

A hand descended upon her shoulder. She started, not having remembered that other people were in the office, and instantly felt guilty at being caught staring after the Colonel. She plastered an annoyed look on her face to scare away the offender.

Havoc looked down at her with a mischievous smile. Refusing to be frightened off-topic, he leaned down and said quietly in her ear, "You know, I would bet good money that the only reason he steals my girlfriends is because he can't have you_."_ There was nothing she could say to this that would not incriminate herself. She settled on quirking an eyebrow at his presumptuous statement. "Actually, I already _tried_. Imagine, even in this office, not a soul would bet against me_."_

Hawkeye's eyebrows pulled together in confusion, not sure whether to be more surprised that the boys were all in agreement on this point, or that they wouldn't bet against Havoc just for the sake of betting. Turning, she swept her eyes across the office to find that Breda, Farman, and Fury had all suddenly found their own paperwork uncharacteristically interesting.

"So, Lieutenant," said Havoc, and she turned face him. "I'll bet you a dollar he sees her once and forgets her last name by next Wednesday." He pulled a dollar out of his pocket and grinned.

"By which time you'll have swooped in to show her how a real man should properly treat a lady?" She asked, bemused. He wiggled the dollar in front of her and smiled wider.

Her own smile could not be contained, despite her best efforts. She pulled out a dollar. "By next Monday. You're on."

**A Welcomed Rain:**

The body was gone, but the white chalk outline remained a testament to its former presence. All that was left of one Harken Trialat resided in its powdery residue. He had been a suspect for numerous armed robberies within the vicinity of East city, and a standing warrant for his arrest had been issued a week ago.

Riza had been buying groceries when she saw him. Elongate scar on his left cheek. Dragon tattoo on his upper right arm. She pulled her gun and told him to freeze. He opted for the knife in his left pocket.

One shot to the head. He was dead before he could push the button to release the blade.

_He was an Ishbalite._ The crime scene detectives told her later. _He had been stealing food from local vendors for three weeks now._

Riza's brow had furrowed. _I thought he was wanted for armed robbery._ Something didn't seem to add up. Her concept of armed robbery was not nicking loaves of bread and apples in the market place.

The investigator had only shrugged. _He had a knife didn't he?_ The man's mind was already somewhere else, thinking of what his wife would have ready for dinner after he finished up here. _Nice shooting, Lieutenant. It's rare you seem 'em right between the eyes like that._

She stood, watching the investigators clean up the scene, and stared at the straight chalk lines that mocked a real silhouette, noticing that if you bent a few, rearranged some of them _just a bit_, you could make an alchemy array.

A thunderclap sounded above, followed by an angry shower from the black clouds choking the sky. Heavy drops fell to the ground, smearing the outline until it all its white edges ran together. Within a matter of minutes, the white smudge on the ground that was all that was left of Harken Trialat had run clean down the street's sewage drain. Erasing him. Erasing his sins.

Erasing hers.

**In the Right Hand, a Gun. In the Left Hand…**

In her right had, a gun. In her left hand, the bleeding stump that was once Sergeant Carry's right arm.

He had gone 3 rounds on the wrong side of an Ishbal blade, unable to pause in his fancy footwork to reload his pistol. By the time she had come upon them in the abandoned building, Sergeant Carry was less a right forearm and at least 5 pints of B+ blood.

Now, she knelt beside him on the floor, trying desperately to tie the tourniquet around what remained of his bicep with her left hand, her right too afraid to drop the pistol. Beyond the cracked doorframe, fierce shouts and gun reports were mingled with the wind-blown sand. _When they come in I had better have this gun in my hand_. This thought kept her fingers painfully clenched around the weapon, unwilling to let the enemy surprise her like they had him.

Sergeant Carry was steadily becoming worse. The gurgling sounds erupting from his throat signaled that he had more than just the arm wound, and his movements were becoming more feeble, more weak.

"Sergeant Carry." She said sternly, fumbling with the knot. She had trained herself to untie complicated knots one-handed, with either hand, blindfolded. The better to get out of restraints should she be captured. Tying them, however, was another matter entirely. "Sergeant Carry," she said again, trying to make her voice ring with authority. There was power in a name. If she said it enough times, with enough force, he would _have_ to recognize it and respond. "I must insist you keep your eyes open."

But his eyes, while open, were already glassing over. The blood was still pumping sluggishly out of his brachial artery, despite her efforts, and staining her knees red.

"Sergeant Carry!" she shouted at the man whose skin was deathly pale. She had finished tying the knot on the tourniquet, and her free hand went to work applying pressure to a side wound that was signaled by a growing crimson smear on his uniform. It was no use. The light was leaving his eyes even as she pressed with all her weight. _Maybe if a just tightened the tourniquet._ Her left hand started to busily tug on the bandage again.

"That man is dead." The voice took her by surprise. She snapped her right arm up, gun leveled on the intruder just as she had planned all along. But only a tall lieutenant stood over her, square glasses glinting in the hazy light. No enemy. No threat. The hand and the gun fell down to her side.

"He's just… you don't…" her sentence trailed off to nowhere as her left hand squeezed the bandage tighter. _Just a bit tighter, and…_

"Sergeant Major!" The man practically yelled, tearing her hand away by the wrist and dragging her to her feet in one rough motion. "We don't have the time. We're evacuating our forces from this quadrant."

Her eyes blinked. "We're being overrun?"

His expression was oddly grim. "No. The brass has decided to try a new tactic." For the first time, she noticed a dark haired young man standing in the doorway, face turned away from the scene in front of him.

"He's dead. You're not. Let's go." He said it the route way of one that's said it before. Had to say it to many a man, many a time. It wasn't unfeeling; it was just undeniably true.

She only stared. He squeezed her bloody left wrist, stained with someone else's life, and the gun in her right hand suddenly seemed that much heavier.

She snorted, an ugly, rough sound, and snatched her hand away.

**Back:**

He slung his arm across her shoulders, and she stretched hers out across his back, getting ready to hoist him up out of the bed and into the wheelchair that HQ had so _generously_ provided. She wasn't a large woman, but the distance was minimal and the strength she packed into her small frame was legendary.

"This is embarrassing," he muttered around a cigarette.

"I could send for Fury," she offered.

"No, that would be even _more_ embarrassing."

"Then don't whine," she said in her customary authoritative voice. He was in the chair now, and she started pushing him to the elevator. Once inside, he voiced the question she could tell he had been debating whether or not to ask.

"Do you think this will work, using that red water stuff?" The quiet tone that he spoke in, the way he chewed the end of the unlit cigarette – didn't hold it, but gnawed on the end like a dog with a bone – betrayed his fear. He had already lost the use of his legs. The prospect of losing something else in trying to regain them was almost more than he could deal with.

Riza was never one for pulling punches, especially with her friends. "I don't know," she said softly. They had not recovered Dr. Marco, but they had found one of his incomplete Red Water crystallizations. They were not quite certain how it could be used, but the Colonel had ordered Havoc to be relocated to an undisclosed location, and had sent Breda in search of Ed.

From her position behind him, staring at his back, she could see his shoulders sag at her admittance. "However, I have full confidence that you will regain the use of your limbs, whether this is the method that will work or not." She rounded her words with all the certainty, all the conviction she could muster without making them seem fake in over-emphasis.

"Are you saying that to make me feel better, or do you really have that much faith in Colonel Mustang?" He was pouting again. A side effect of such an active field man feeling useless. Afraid everyone only pitied him. Afraid to hope least it all be one more disappointment.

Riza was staring into Havoc's back, but all she could see was the Colonel's eyes as he'd ordered her to bring him his uniform, black as pitch and twice as entangling. Daring her to contradict him. That image, burned into her memory, left no room for doubt in her mind. Their Colonel would make sure Havoc walked again. Period. No discussion.

And, despite his pleadings to be cut loose, despite begging Mustang to give up on a useless "pawn that can't move," she was positive that Havoc had the same faith in the Colonel that she did. The same ardent wish for the Colonel's dream to become reality.

It was probably his own faith in that dream that made his current situation all the more difficult. It was a sentiment Riza was all too familiar with.

"Yes," she answered his question, staring at the curve and dip of his spine, willing it to correct itself in a timely fashion.

**The Roar of the Sea: **

When she was very small, and the world was still new and beautiful in her tiny eyes, Riza's mother had given her a seashell. It was beautiful, if somewhat spikey, and its soft pink and orange colors whorled into a classic conch shape, it's surface smooth as porcelain in her small fingers. Riza, living in the Northern territories, had never seen the ocean or its creatures, and was immediately dazzled.

_If you hold your ear up to the opening, honey, you can hear the roar of the sea_, her mother had said. _The shell misses the ocean, misses its home. It is calling for it, singing to it. Remembering what it loved._

A small Hawkeye had nodded her head fervently, sympathy already stabbing her heart for the poor shell, and listened for hours to what she imagined was the sound of water against rocks and sand.

A few years later, when she discovered that you heard the same noise when you held an empty cup to your ear, she cried inconsolably into her pillow for two days.

Eventually she understood enough physics to comprehend _why_ the ear perceived such a sound when being held up to a hollow, concaved opening. However, by this point, her wide-eyed wonder at the things the world held had already been tarnished beyond repair. The magic, so to speak, was already gone, and scientific facts only filled the void left in its hasty retreat.

She was taken by surprise, therefore, by the crushing feeling in her chest the first time she found Lieutenant Colonel Mustang drunk and past out at his desk after working late hours. She had forgotten a file she had wanted to work on at home, and returned to the office to pick it up on the way back from grocery shopping. But upon finding the door to the office unlocked, she pushed the handle to reveal a half-empty bottle of old fashioned scotch, and empty glass with some un-melted ice still in the bottom, and a snoring Lieutenant Colonel lying face down on a stack of papers at his desk.

She stood still for a total of five minutes, trying to decide exactly what she was privy to witnessing. At first, all she could think of was the seashell with its fake song. This was seeing the man behind the alchemist. It was seeing the weakness behind the arrogance, the fear and doubt behind the confidence. For a brief moment, she felt betrayed. Here before her was the undeniable truth that the scandalous, pompous, invincible Roy Mustang was only human after all.

As she was staring, he made a sound that was somewhere between a yawn and a whimper, and tucked his right hand under his face.

_The shell misses the ocean, misses its home. It is calling for it, singing to it. Remembering what it loved._

She wondered, then, what he was dreaming. What he was remembering. What he loved. She was suddenly struck by the thought that gods do _not_ dream. That they _can't._ Perhaps, then, it was good that he was a man after all.

Besides, men are much more approachable than gods.

_From now on, I'll stay late to help him with the paperwork._ Releasing a sigh, she set down her groceries and moved to tuck a blanket around his shoulders.And as her fingers gently brushed some dark bangs out of his eyes, she wondered if the waves of the sea sounded anything like the rise and fall of his breathing.

**To a City in Ruins:**

Her back was pressed painfully against the door, his hands planted firmly on either side of her head. She wasn't sure how she had come into such a precarious position, but she suspected alcohol had something to do with it. On his part, anyway. She had only sought to give him the reports she had blearily finished scribbling, having worked into the wee hours to help him wade through the unrelenting stacks of paperwork that had been neglected in the aftermath of Hughes' death.

She had been doing her work in a separate room, at Havoc's desk, so that the Colonel wouldn't distract her. Normally, focusing her attention on her work wasn't a problem. But during these late night sessions, after he had cast aside his outer jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, every restless movement and disgruntled noise he made fragmented her concentration and drew all its pieces squarely to him and his mussed hair. Thus, if she was to be any use to him on nights like this, she had to fill out her share of forms rapidly and in a different room.

When she returned to his office and moved to set the reports on his desk, he had stood up quickly and awkwardly, knocking over his chair, and had roughly pinned her to a nearby wall. His face inches away, she could smell sour whiskey on his breath.

Apparently, he had used his privacy towards different ends than she had. Reflecting back on it now, she should have known better. This was the first late night since Hughes' death. Of course he would have had a drink to try and get his mind off it and onto the paperwork in front of him. Of course he would have had to chase the first with a second. The only thing that surprised her in this line of events was that it only occurred to her now.

Now. When she was backed up against a wall with him staring at her. _Like that._ She hadn't resisted. If she had, he had drunk enough that she could have laid him out on his back easily. But if there was one person she never seemed to have it in her to resist, it was Roy Mustang. Instead, she just stared back at him, silently asking with her eyes just what the hell he thought he was doing.

A series of different thoughts were apparently chasing themselves across his mind, because his face kept shifting and changing to reflect them. When it was over, all that was left was something that resembled a desperate need, a terrible emptiness. He leaned his face closer to hers, and she closed her eyes, pondering how this was nothing like the embarrassing number of fantasies she had had of him kissing her.

Instead of the feel of his lips against hers, she was aware of uncharacteristic stubble scraping against her cheek, and an irregular pattern of breathing against the edges of her ear. He took in a deep breath, tickling her earlobe.

"A city in ruins," was all he said, his horrible emptiness mingling with the warmth of his breath against her cheek.

Later, after she had led him to the couch in his office and gently pushed him into its cushions to sleep it off, she sat at Havoc's desk and tried to unravel the meaning of the Colonel's words. He could have been thinking about their time in Ishbal, killing among the decimated buildings. He could have been referring to the condition of their own nation, currently under the tyrannical rule of a military dictatorship. He could have even been speaking of his own emotional state, having just lost his greatest friend.

She hoped to God he had meant anything but what he had seen in her eyes.

**An Instant's Respite:**

Some people, she had heard, dreamt in black and white. There were times when Riza longed to be one of them, if only to escape the merciless colors of her nightmares: the haughty blue of the uniforms that shrouded every figure, the pallid yellows of faces drained by fear. But the worst, and by far the most numerous, were the reds in all their various textures and shades. Vermillion was the color of her hands as she dug a bullet out of Havoc's hip. Crimson was the color that spurted from Farman's mouth when he was lung shot. Scarlet was the eye of every Ishbalite she had slaughtered from afar.

The Colonel's blood was a murky mixture of all these colors, as if those horrible scenes where the primary hues that created him, painting his sorrow for the past and his hope for the future so vividly she could taste them with the gritty dust that always seemed to be in her mouth.

As the thick, multi-colored blood dribbled from his eyes and into his hair, always there because of some fault of her own, she would scream and scream that seeing was too much, and all she had ever wanted to do was love, live, and protect those close to her.

And when her screaming would invariably wake her up, she would fumble into her darkened kitchen for a glass of colorless water, and reflect on how even in sleep she was denied an instant's respite.

**Bouquet:**

Hawkeye never left flowers at Hughes' grave. Occasionally, she would send a bouquet to Gracia and a small basket of toys to Alicia (always vaguely marked "from The Unit"), but never did she accompany the woman and her daughter on their frequent trips to the man's tombstone.

Maes she always visited alone, with empty hands and a mouthful of promises.

And even though bringing a present to a grave was tradition, Hawkeye never thought twice about giving him only her words. Her conviction was the most valuable thing she owned, and it would certainly last much longer than an assortment of blossoms that would wilt and die in Central City's hazy heat.

Late at night, when no one would bother her, she would stand at the foot of his grave and vow to make sure his efforts hadn't been all for naught. At all costs, even that of her own life, she would do everything in her power to see Mustang succeed. Truly, she would convey, Hughes' loyalty and strength of friendship had been and example for them all – a benchmark they would all have to live up to.

And sometimes, when things had been going particularly rough, she would also confide in him her fears about upcoming operations, her supreme annoyance with military protocols, and her concern for those hotheaded Elric brothers, knowing that keeping up her austere façade would do her no good here anyway. In many ways, she kept Hughes closer to her now than she ever did when he was alive.

Then, because he could no longer burst into a fit of startlingly loud hysterics, she would make a final comment on how big Alicia had become recently, and promise to use her skills to shoot off any Roy Mustangs that hung around the girl when she became the beautiful young woman she was promising to be.

Because, honestly, one of the worst things a girl could do was fall in love with a Roy Mustang.

**Beloved Dog:**

While she would never condone his silly behavior, Hawkeye knew first-hand that Breda had a valid reason to be afraid of dogs. When she was nine years old, she had been bitten by a wondering mongrel while playing in a nearby park with some friends. The injury wasn't very severe, but the series of injections she was subjected to out of concern that the dog may have had rabies left quite an impression.

However, unlike Breda, Hawkeye didn't develop an abject fear of dogs in general. She only had a dislike of strays. It was a big part of the reason Hawkeye took in Black Hayate when Fury couldn't find anyone to keep him; she didn't want him turned loose only to live a meager life of scrounging for food and fighting other strays until he attacked somebody, all the while covered in fleas and ticks.

Of course, she also thought that the puppy was adorable, but she wouldn't admit that in front of the guys.

Properly attended and cared for, Hawkeye believed that every dog could be a loyal, good-natured pet. It was only when they were left to fend for themselves that, naturally, they became feral predators.

It was so with the dog that had bitten her, and it was so with the man that stood defiantly before them now, his red eyes blazing in the rain. She could see it in the way that he baited Colonel Mustang, drawing him into a fight that he couldn't win in such a downpour. She could see it in the way he stood, feet wide apart and hands bunched into fists. This man was a stray, had been since he was young.

A certain feeling twisted in her stomach at his accusing red gaze. There was no question of _why_ he was a stray, or _how_ such a thing had come about. He was an Ishbalite. Obviously it was the military that had killed his family, trained his fists, and hardened his stare. Obviously it was her that had sighted down the barrels of his life's demise.

But it was too late for guilt. No matter whose fault this mongrel's existence was, he had been attacking State Alchemists, and now he was attacking Colonel Mustang. And much like the dog that had bitten her, he had to be dealt with properly.

Sweeping her legs under the Colonel's to keep him from running headfirst into destruction, she opened fire.

**Magic Bullet Gunner: **

She had a reputation for never missing, though it was, of course, and exaggeration. If you asked _her_ if she ever missed, she would tell you, "Never when it counted," and if you asked her when it didn't count, she would only smirk to herself and continue cleaning her gun.

She was one of the military's best gunners, of that everyone was in agreement. And yet, despite her undeniable skill, she only held the rank of Lieutenant. Most would blame the fact that she was the only one who could keep Colonel Mustang on task, and therefore would perpetually be stuck in a rank beneath him so that she could continue on as his aide. Anyone who had witnessed him using the military line to call his dates when she was on holiday would agree: she alone could keep him in line.

And if you asked her how she did it, she would give a rare smile and say with much wry humor, "Magic."

**A Goddess's Embrace:**

It was gruesome. There was no other way one could describe it. The woman had been butchered with what was later determined to be a meat cleaver, and none of her body parts were in their traditional locations. Her left arm was bent meaninglessly up in the air, stiff with rigor mortis and pre-mortem fear. The rest of her lay twisted at odd angles. Murdered. Slaughtered.

"Like a cow," thought Hughes, thanking any higher power that existed that Gracia was at home, safe.

"Like a hog," thought Havoc, chewing extra-hard on his cigarette.

"Like an Ishbalite," whispered a voice in Mustang's mind, unbidden.

The three men did not enter the tent that had been erected to keep the public eyes at bay. It wasn't that any of them were squeamish or faint of heart. On the contrary, each had seen murder, and, in some people's opinions, were each murders themselves. It was the sobbing child in the center of the room, draped over his mother's now shrouded figure, that banished them to the doorstep. It wasn't death that made them uneasy, uncertain. It was the child's wrenching cries that made the room vibrate with fear and misery.

Hawkeye alone knelt beside the small boy, hands firmly on his shoulders, squeezing them in compassion. She did not tell him that things would be all right; they would not. She did not say that things would get easier in time; they would possibly get worse. Instead, she merely stayed next to him, assurance that he was not _completely _alone. That the _whole_ world had not collapsed. And though cradling his shoulders with her palms was a small thing, and staying beside him as he wept was a minute gesture, it was, to her own bitter self-disappointment, all she can do.

On the outside looking in, three men observed her bent form, clasping the child.

"Like a mother," thought Hughes, thankful that they had a woman present.

"Like an angel," thought Havoc, thankful that Hawkeye was part of their unit.

"Like a goddess," thought Mustang, thankful that Hawkeye was always by his side.

And thus they lurked in the doorway and whispered to each other, afraid to intrude upon a scene that was both gruesome and lovely, sacred and profane.

Author's Note: That last one, "A Goddess's Embrace", was based off a scene in episode seven, just in case you were curious. Also, "Back" was based off chapters 43 & 44 of the manga. Thanks for reading this far! If you have time, please review!

Author's Note 2: A big "thank you" goes to Mandy138 for pointing out a few typos I missed. And I thought I checked it so carefully! They've been corrected. Also, "Thanks!" to everyone that's reviewed so far – it really makes it worth posting, you know?


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